Dark... darker...

They say drugs are a poor man's escape from poverty and a rich man's escape from abundance. For Mrin it was an escape too, from her nightmares. 

The nightmares started when she had barely turned a teenager. They were always different and yet every night she would wake up with the same terror. She would wake up wanting to scream her lungs out and thrash around in her bed. But she never could. It was as if a hand would choke her mouth and hold her down. Not that if she did shout anyone would hear, unless she was very very loud. Because by the time she was 10, she had moved on to a room on the roof. Her mother had given birth to twins and they needed her spacious  room. 

The drugs started when she was 17. Her step sister, Meera, was on the roof at 2 am one night, smoking. Mrin had seen her smoke on countless occasions over the last many years when she would wake up with a start in the middle of the night shivering after a nightmare. The glowing stick being held by her silhouette framed against the street light brought her a sense of comfort. But it was a few months after she had turned 17 that she finally gathered the courage and walked out to meet her. Her sister looked back at her, her beautiful brown eyes glinting with reflected light from the street lamp. She offered Mrin the rolled paper wordlessly. Mrin knew it was wrong to smoke but she still accepted it falteringly.
Her step sister was her biggest idol in the house. The beautiful face, the grace, the confidence - she could turn heads whenever she walked into a room. And for a particularly awkward teenager, Meera was the perfect person to be. As Mrin took her first drag, she burst out coughing, tears rushing to her eyes. Meera dissolved into peels of laughter.The thought of embarrassing herself in front of Meera drove Mrin to take a second, deeper drag. The coughing got worse. Determined to show Meera she was an adult, Mrin kept taking puff after puff till she could take it no more, her throat burning as if on fire, her eyes watering and her head feeling light and dizzy. She flung it down on the floor and ran inside her room crying. Slamming the door behind her, she threw herself face down on the bed, sobbing helplessly. Through the open window and her tear stained eyes she noticed Meera reach down and pick up the little roll of paper, dust the end and put it back in her mouth. She didn't know then that she had had her first experience with weed.

Determined to not let Meera think of her as a weak cry baby, next day she went and procured 2 cigarettes. It wasn't easy. But she took money out of her lunch allowance and then got off the bus 2 stops before her tuition class. Then she walked to the nearest Paan shop and asked for cigarettes in her most adult voice. She even wore a Salwar Kameez to look older and more mature. He looked her up and down but then gave her the cigarettes wordlessly. That night she puffed away gallantly through the burning throat and the watering eyes. A week later when she woke up to find Meera smoking outside, Mrin confidently strode outside and asked for the smoke. It tasted different, but she was not going to let that be a hurdle. Meera started laughing, only this time it didn't seem to Mrin like she was mocking. Mrin too ventured a smile and handed back the roll of paper. Why was her head feeling so light though, she thought. 

That night the nightmares didn't come back. She slept peacefully for the first time in years. Since that night  many years ago when she had woken up because there was someone in her room. She could feel his presence and smell the familiar cologne. She could then feel his hand covering her mouth so she wouldn't shout, her body pinned under his shoulder. The rest she had successfully blotted out. All that remained from that night were the nightmares and that overwhelming smell of cologne.